With Steve Hofmeyr emblazoning the pages of our local tabloids with his various indiscretions and illegitimate spawn dotted around the countryside, there seems to be a unanimous cry from women and fans alike: The Hof is a lying, cheating man dog.

Nobody's perfect, not even Steve. We all make mistakes, even if some of us insist on running into the same wall over and over again, thinking that no one will notice, especially if you're a Platteland guitar sycophant phenomenon.

Indiscretions are a strange thing, if you think of the root causes. One of the plausible reason people cheat on their partners in the first place, is mostly because they thought it would only happen once, and so why tell (and hurt) their partners?

It's fairly unanimous: cheating was never meant to cause hurt. The immediate hurt would've occurred because the partner ended the relationship before embarking on illicit activities in the back of storerooms, on the office fax, let's be frank.

A cheater doesn't want out, or doesn't want to rock the boat with a traumatic dumping. They just want a once off bite of Adam's apple, and then carry on with their lives.

Of course, the truth has a sly and lascivious way of sneaking out — sometimes decades later. Somehow everyone believes that their case is going to end differently, and it never does. However, that’s neither here nor there.

How do you turn a blind eye?

I'd like to know how Natasha Sutherland, the Hof's now estranged wife, managed to turn a blind eye. God knows that she had to think something was amuck, what with increased press reports of his blue roaming eye, and of course the giant pulsating factor of out-of-wedlock kids phoning him on Father's Day. Kids, mind you, that she had nothing to do with the creation thereof.

So, assuming then that she was pretending she had no idea that her husband was banging random women like screen doors in a hurricane, how did she do it? How can someone compartmentalise pockets of pain like that? She must be made of galvanised steel, or otherwise, has grown completely numb to his philandering ways.

But is that even possible? If I think back to the time where I had a cheating lover on my hands. Every single hair on the back of my neck was ready alert — standing erect and ready, knowing exactly what he was doing, even under his firmest protestations.

It was the most awful time of my life, even worse than when I finally decided to leave him.

That constant knot of fear and paranoia bubbling in the pit of your stomach, causing you to break into unsightly sweats, while millions of lewd thoughts tumble through your head, causing enough heartache and anguish to exhaust you forever.

Sometimes you don't know what's real or just a nightmare, where assumptions just screw you over even more. Before you know it, you're an insecure gibbering wreck, desperate for his faithfulness to return, but so far along a tunnel of hate, you sometimes consider killing him and leaving him for dead.

It's pain at an unprecedented level. His midnight texting, right next to you as you lie in bed pretending to be asleep, to his late hours at the office due to a suddenly and excusable 'crazy workload', it's the smell of Givenchy on his clothes — and you don't wear Givenchy.

No pain parallel to betrayal

Either way, before you manage to get rid of the cowardly lout with whom you share a bed, dreams, and possibly very expensive real estate, you go through a period of hell that is so real, it's tangible.

It's as obvious as a setting sunset, there's no hiding the pain that engulfs you.

Melodramatic, sure, but that's where I wonder how Natasha Sutherland managed to 'stand by her man' for so long. Marriage is meant to be forever, but under the premise of 'Sans Adultery'.

Mrs Ex Steve Hofmeyr, during all the press implosions, has fascinated me with her outward resilience, and the ability to forgive in many circumstances. Because there really is no other pain parallel to betrayal. So for that, I take my hat off to her.

Have you been cheated on? What do you think? Post your comments below: